AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Here’s British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s idea of an ‘Afghanistan plan’: see if we can’t talk the Taliban into killing each other.

That’s a plan??!!

Here’s a better plan: all drive to Bagram airbase, all get on the next airplane, and then all LEAVE. Then, with the billions saved, build a health system that actually works, build more aged care facilities, (we're going to need them soon) and build a better education system – and do it all so everyone at some stage gets to use it for free.

When you get to aged 90 and with no money, you don’t care if it’s called ‘socialism’; you can call it whatever you like. Chances are, when you've got to aged 90, you've forgotten what the word 'socialism' means anyway.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salaam Fayad has suggested that a de facto Palestinian state be established within the next two years and that it could be achieved with or without Israeli participation.

This really is fanciful thinking and is just another power grabbing, time wasting proposal by a desperate Palestinian Authority that has no mandate from the Palestinian people and exists only at the whim of the Israelis via the sham that is the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement.

One should be quite clear about the Zionist Israeli stance on the question of Palestinian statehood; as far as the Zionists are concerned, THERE WILL NEVER BE A PALESTINIAN STATE. Never mind all the talk of statehood coming from Netanyahu or from Obama or Abbas or, now, Fayad; THERE WILL NEVER BE A PALESTINIAN STATE while the Zionists have any control over the matter. The only way a de facto state can be created is if the PA declared a unilateral declaration of independence – a move that would be crushed literally within hours by the Israelis leaving the Palestinian people far worse off than even they are now.

The fact is; the Israelis would secretly welcome such an opportunity. It would provide them with the excuse they need to fulfil their long held dream of fully occupying both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip without pussyfooting around with the settlements issue to appease the US. The establishment of a de facto Palestinian state would be seen as direct threat to Israeli security and would provide all the justification the Israelis need to fully occupy and even annex the territories in a move that would be seen as fait accompli if the Palestinians made any unilateral move to establish a de facto state.

The only way that any Palestinian sovereign state can exist is when it has the full support of all of the Palestinian people backed by the full support of all of the peoples of the world. This will only happen after Israel has been isolated by the US and the West who should refuse to support Israel until it fully recognises the right of the Palestinian peoples to live on their own lands without any fear and with full and equal rights with the people they share that land with. Until then there will never be a Palestinian state – de facto or otherwise.

While they want to make the ‘Zionism is Nazism’ analogy illegal, they are more than happy to use Nazi analogies themselves against others. A report in today’s ‘Jerusalem Post’ for example does just that. The headline blares: ‘Sweden’s stance reminiscent of WW2’. The inference is clear.

And, of course, who can forget Netanyahu’s remarks to Bush’s National Security Advisor and neocon Stephen Hadley when Netanyahu told Hadley that ‘Ahmadinejad is a modern Hitler’?

For Blair and Bolt ancestry has nothing to do with race if you are an Aborigine that doesn’t look Aboriginal. At that point you are a white person and therefore not entitled to any of the benefits that one may be entitled to if one were Aboriginal. Bolt and Blair believe that Aboriginality is only bona fide when measured against the sensory function of sight. In other words, you are only Aboriginal if you meet the perceptions of what they consider an Aboriginal person should look like.

One wonders if there were special entitlements to other races because of their race if the same kind of criteria applied. For example, if there were, say, scholarships being awarded to Jewish students by a Jewish endowment foundation, would the students only be eligible for those scholarships if they looked Jewish? What if they looked like white Europeans as, indeed, many Jews do and the only way of telling if they were Jewish or not is to simply ask them to provide evidence of their Jewish heritage?

If these Aboriginal people that do not look Aboriginal are able to provide evidence of their Aboriginal heritage then who could deny them of their entitlements any more than a Jewish person could be denied of their entitlement just because they didn’t look Jewish?

For Blair and Bolt racism is in the eye of the beholder - both literally and metaphorically.

According to a report in the ‘Jerusalem Post’, Hamas has claimed that the group had been armed by Fatah agents in the Gaza. Since Fatah in the Gaza is known to be supported by Israel in their fight against Hamas, it would not be unreasonable to come to the conclusion that Israel is either directly or indirectly responsible for this attempt to bring trouble to Hamas in the Gaza.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Israel seems determined to provoke its enemies hook or by crook in order to get a war going against Iran. If they’re not continually directly accusing Iran of having a nuclear weapons program – despite the total lack of any evidence to even suggest Iran has any nuclear weapons program – then Israel is accusing Hezbollah of wanting to attack Israelis and Israeli interests outside of Israel warning that, if any Israeli is harmed, Hezbollah will be held responsible. Just to help the provocation along, Israel is also still sending their military jets into sovereign Lebanese airspace. In their latest piece of warmongering chutzpah, Israel is accusing Hezbollah of stockpiling rockets in order to strike Israel. The ploy here is to use this as some sort of casus belli to attack Lebanon in the hope of dragging Iran into the fray – and then, of course, the US.

The irony is, if Hezbollah should get in first and attack Israel using Israel’s stockpiling of fuel and weapons from the US as a casus belli, the West would jump up and down in outrage, yet, if Israel attacks Hezbollah, all we hear about is how Israel is defending itself.

Israel has twice unsuccessfully attempted to invade and occupy Lebanon in order to secure control of the Litani River headwaters for its own use. It has failed in the past but they are determined. They hope that, with enough ‘provocation’, the West will this time turn a blind eye to their invasion and occupation of south Lebanon. And, while they’re at it, they’ll do the same to Hamas in the Gaza using the main event, their attack against Iran, as cover for the complete occupation of the Gaza, the West Bank and south Lebanon.

In order for the West to turn a blind eye to such an Israeli onslaught, Israel will have to ensure that any act of ‘terrorism’ against Israel or Israelis is really horrendous enough to make it worth while.

The world should prepare itself for an outrageous ‘false flag’ act of ‘terrorism’ from ‘Hezbollah’ at any moment.

UPDATE 1According to a Ha’aretz report Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday said that, if Hezbollah joins the Lebanese government then Israel will hold the Lebanese government for any ‘attack’ against Israel by Hezbollah.

Deputy Israeli Prime Minister Dan Meridor was also quoted as saying; “Hezbollah is a terror organization that has become a semi-army. Basically, it is a branch of Iran on our northern border, with Syria's consent and with Lebanon's consent. This is not a healthy phenomenon”, highlighting the fact that Israel’s real enemy is still Iran and that the emphasised links between Hezbollah and Iran will be all the casus belli that Israel needs to attack Iran.

UPDATE 2Ha’aretz are reporting that foreign fighters are making their way to the Gaza and that Hamas are sending recruits to Iran for training.

Israel are determined to link both Hezbollah and Hamas intrinsically to each other and to Iran in order to build up their casus belli to attack.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

The recent spate of allied deaths in Afghanistan, including an Australian last month, has led to increased calls for Australia to withdraw its troops from this un-winnable war. Recent polls have already indicated that Australians generally are not interested in continuing to support the war in Afghanistan but with the upsurge in deaths last month the call to get out has got louder.

Despite public opinion going against him, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd continues to insist that Australia’s ongoing support of the allied effort to kill as many Afghans as possible is somehow in Australia’s interests.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Of course, a lot of water can pass under the bridge between now and the 2012 US presidential elections, but, the way things are going at the moment, the American people seem mightily disappointed with the way Obama has performed so far relative to their expectations. By the time the election comes around they might just want to opt for someone else who will give them what they want – and what Obama originally promised.

The Republicans are more than happy to see Obama slump at the polls; they think that this actually reflects support for their cause. What they don’t appreciate is that Americans generally do not want to return to Bush-Cheney style Republicanism which, apart from the alternative Ron Paul offers, is all that Republicans otherwise are offering at the moment.

While incumbent presidents running for re-election for a second term usually have no difficulty in being renominated at their party’s conventions (though Ted Kennedy did give Jimmy Carter a run for his money for the 1980 Democrat nomination by getting around a third of the votes), Obama, if he carry’s on the way he’s going, might just change that ‘incumbent usually gets the nod’ scenario come the nominations for the 2012 election.

Americans expected to elect a president that would end the wars that Bush and his neocons mates started. They also expected the president to turn around the economy and, while most Americans appreciated that turning the economy is a lot easier said than done, they did expect the president to at least be a little more sympathetic toward those caught up in the sub-prime mortgage debacle and who were losing their jobs and homes in droves – and still are despite billions of American taxpayers money having been shovelled to the banks.

Thousands every week are still quietly losing their jobs while loud noises are being made about ‘green shoots’ appearing in the economy. Unfortunately, ‘green shoots’ appearing in the economy simply means that the banks aren’t losing as much as they were six months ago. Your average working class American hasn’t seen many ‘green shoots’ springing up in their backyard – assuming they’re lucky enough to still have a backyard.

Americans are beginning to see through the Obama charm. American kidz, as well as kidz from Europe and Australia, not to mention kidz fighting for the other side as well as civilians, are continuing to die in a totally un-winnable war which has no end in sight. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that the bottom line is real simple; if the West bombs Islam, then Islam is likely to bomb the West. The ‘they are all terrorists’ and ‘they hate our values’ rhetoric is wearing very thin.

Things are no better in the Middle East. Obama mouths a lot of platitudes about stopping settlements in the West Bank and peace between Israel and the Palestinians yet Gaza is still blockaded at horrific cost to the people imprisoned in that ghetto, Iran continues to be threatened despite there being not a shred of evidence to support US and Israeli claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and Israel still deliberately provokes war against Lebanon and the Palestinians. In other words, there is no more peace in the world now than there was when Bush junior was President.

At the 2008 presidential elections the American people gave Obama a massive mandate to reverse all the policies Bush had instigated. Instead of reversing them, he’s kept them going – and he’s done it in a way that seems almost underhand. At least with Bush he didn’t care if the world knew he was an asshole but with Obama it seems like he’s conned the American people.

It’s not too late for Obama to turn himself around and deliver what the American people expected from him but he has a fair bit of work to do if he wants a crack at re-election in 2012.

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About Me

is an Aeronautical Engineer, Historian and general carer of what goes on in the world.
Apart from an earlier career in engineering, Lataan also has a First Class Honours BA degree in History and a PhD in International Politics.
All material on this site is available for use without permission but it would be appreciated if the source is acknowledged.